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Bonus Episode: The Carnivore Diet and Why Most Rigid Diets Fail · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: There's a lack of variety, and I don't know about you.
• 0:02
  Philip Pape: This just gets boring.
• 0:03
  Philip Pape: I've tried all the diets.
• 0:04
  Philip Pape: I've done probably 15 different diets, 20 diets over my life.
• 0:07
  Philip Pape: And every time I lose interest because they're just boring.
• 0:10
  Philip Pape: They're restrictive.
• 0:11
  Philip Pape: You just can't, quote unquote, can't eat certain things.
• 0:15
  Philip Pape: So the minute that you crave that thing, all of a sudden, oh no, it's a moral dilemma.
• 0:21
  Philip Pape: It's a choice.
• 0:22
  Philip Pape: And now you have to choose do I fail or do I continue and feel restricted?
• 0:29
  Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast.
• 0:32
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, Philip Pape, and this twice-a-week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition, and upgrading your body composition.
• 0:43
  Philip Pape: We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle, and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best.
• 0:53
  Philip Pape: Let's dive right in.
• 0:58
  Philip Pape: Wits and Weights community, welcome to another bonus solo episode of the Wits and Weights podcast.
• 1:03
  Philip Pape: You never know when these are going to drop, so make sure to subscribe or follow and catch these bonus episodes when they come out.
• 1:10
  Philip Pape: Today's episode is called The Carnivore Diet and Why Most Rigid Diets Fail.
• 1:16
  Philip Pape: And it was an answer to a question posted in the Wits and Weights Facebook community as part of the Ask Philip Weekly Thread, where I answer member questions live every Friday.
• 1:29
  Philip Pape: If that sounds like something you need or want or would find value in, search for Wits and Weights on Facebook or click the link in my show notes to join the group.
• 1:39
  Philip Pape: It's totally free.
• 1:40
  Philip Pape: You'll have the chance to ask me specific questions for your situation and get direct no BS answers to take your results to the next level.
• 1:50
  Philip Pape: Let's play today's episode, The Carnivore Diet and Why Most Rigid Diets Fail.
• 1:57
  Philip Pape: This question is from Jerry.
• 1:59
  Philip Pape: He is a current client athlete of mine.
• 2:02
  Philip Pape: He's had spectacular results because you know he's following the plan.
• 2:07
  Philip Pape: And he came to me because he had done the carnivore diet before.
• 2:11
  Philip Pape: He knows how to lift, strong guy, you know, concerned about his health and longevity, but also physique and all the other things we all care about.
• 2:18
  Philip Pape: And something wasn't quite fitting in his lifestyle.
• 2:22
  Philip Pape: It wasn't quite working.
• 2:24
  Philip Pape: This this is why, this is why he sought me out and wanted to understand the education and the science behind it, but then apply it and actually get results.
• 2:32
  Philip Pape: So he's getting the results.
• 2:34
  Philip Pape: And I thank you, Jerry, for posting this question in our Facebook group so that everyone can learn from your experience and the answer to the question.
• 2:43
  Philip Pape: He didn't have to do this, everyone, right?
• 2:45
  Philip Pape: Jerry could reach out to me any day as part of our private client uh relationship and ask a question, which he does, but I know he did this to help the community learn as well.
• 2:55
  Philip Pape: So I appreciate that.
• 2:56
  Philip Pape: So here's this question: What are your thoughts on the carnivore diet?
• 3:00
  Philip Pape: Specifically, I adhered pretty strictly to the carnivore diet for about four months, a few years ago.
• 3:05
  Philip Pape: I lost 15 pounds, had some improvements in my blood work, triglycerides of all things came down significantly, some improved digestion after initial two weeks, et cetera.
• 3:14
  Philip Pape: Didn't maintain it because it was just too restrictive long term.
• 3:19
  Philip Pape: And for those watching the video, you can see I highlighted that statement in yellow because you're already answering your own question, Jerry, right?
• 3:27
  Philip Pape: And I understand your question's kind of a leading one because you've already learned through the process why these kinds of diets may or may not work for people.
• 3:36
  Philip Pape: Uh continuing on, he says, Do you think people's success on the diet is mostly just incidental due to the reduction in total caloric intake, like eating more satiating whole foods?
• 3:49
  Philip Pape: So I highlighted that as well.
• 3:50
  Philip Pape: Do the reduction in total caloric intake and the general benefits of reducing carbohydrate intake for folks that may be more insulin resistant.
• 3:58
  Philip Pape: I'm going to address that part especially a little bit later on, but I like the way you worded it for folks that may be more insulin resistant.
• 4:06
  Philip Pape: So the assumption being reduced carbs may be helpful for that specific population, as opposed to necessarily anyone.
• 4:13
  Philip Pape: Or do you think there's something more specific going on with the carnivore diet that's resulting in benefits for some people, at least for as long as they are able to adhere?
• 4:22
  Philip Pape: Reason for the question is, and this is the good part, okay?
• 4:25
  Philip Pape: I've lost just about as much weight by getting serious about my calorie and macro tracking in the short time we've been working together while eating a much more balanced and sustainable diet, albeit fairly low carb, given my specific family history metabolism.
• 4:40
  Philip Pape: And I'm glad he threw that last comment in there because I want everyone to know that even on a flexible diet, even when you're tracking calories and macros and you have all the freedom in the world to pick whatever food you need to make that happen, you still have to make, you still want to make trade-offs for managing hunger, for example, which is like what I talked about on episode 99 with Brandon de Cruz about calorie density, food quality, and so on.
• 5:04
  Philip Pape: And we still have to keep our protein pretty high in relative terms to the calories, which then causes your fats and carbs to be lower.
• 5:12
  Philip Pape: So the when you're deep into a diet or you're on an aggressive diet like Jerry is, because his metabolism is high enough to do that and he lifts a lot, and he has good insulin sensitivity and all that.
• 5:23
  Philip Pape: Um, the carbs still end up being quote unquote low.
• 5:26
  Philip Pape: They might be in like the low hundred grams or something like that.
• 5:29
  Philip Pape: Now, that's that's a far cry from keto, which could be 30 grams or zero grams, uh, or being in a surplus where you're eating 3,000 calories and you're still keeping carbs extremely low, right?
• 5:40
  Philip Pape: That that's what we mean by low carb.
• 5:42
  Philip Pape: But specifically, Jerry asked about the carnivore diet.
• 5:45
  Philip Pape: So, first of all, what is the carnivore diet?
• 5:48
  Philip Pape: Uh, I'm not gonna name all the names because the whole thing is really uh a big um uh how do I call it?
• 5:56
  Philip Pape: It's a sales strategy, it's a program, it's one of these.
• 5:59
  Philip Pape: I I will call it a fad diet.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: Let's just call it what it is, like many.
• 6:03
  Philip Pape: You know, it comes along and it it has a sexy appeal to it.
• 6:06
  Philip Pape: It's simple to understand.
• 6:08
  Philip Pape: And what it is is you eat only animal products, meat, airy, uh, airy, meat, eggs, and dairy.
• 6:16
  Philip Pape: And there's a lot of great stuff in those foods.
• 6:19
  Philip Pape: I mean, those foods, if you are not um a vegetarian or vegan, especially vegan, or have intolerances to them, definitely should be in your diet uh for the protein, right?
• 6:30
  Philip Pape: For the fats, for the uh whole foods, the calorie density and all that, or not calorie density, um the satiety.
• 6:37
  Philip Pape: But the carnivore diet is only animal products, nothing else.
• 6:40
  Philip Pape: No fruits, vegetables, starches, grains, you name it.
• 6:43
  Philip Pape: So by proxy, the result is it's a zero carb diet.
• 6:47
  Philip Pape: Now, maybe not quite zero carbs because dairy can have carbs in it, but it's close.
• 6:52
  Philip Pape: No added sugars, no high fat, high carb, ultra-processed foods.
• 6:56
  Philip Pape: And I say it that way because a lot of people, when the keto diet became popular, they were like, Yeah, we're cutting out carbs and we're going to fat.
• 7:04
  Philip Pape: And that's why, you know, it's great.
• 7:06
  Philip Pape: And you we cut out all these processed carbs.
• 7:09
  Philip Pape: Well, processed foods, if you look at most of them, are fats and carbs.
• 7:13
  Philip Pape: They're the combination of fats and carbs, which is a delicious combination for the human brain.
• 7:18
  Philip Pape: And what part of the reason we overconsume them.
• 7:21
  Philip Pape: So I always want to be clear about ultra-processed foods being not just carbs, you know, unless, you know, air-popped salted popcorn.
• 7:29
  Philip Pape: But compare the palatability of that, you're you're you're gonna only eat so much of that versus buttered popcorn, right?
• 7:36
  Philip Pape: Like which which both you can buy in a bag.
• 7:39
  Philip Pape: Um, alcohol, I I suspect, you know, for a lot of people this means they cut out alcohol because it's a processed grain-based food and so on.
• 7:46
  Philip Pape: So it cuts out all that stuff.
• 7:48
  Philip Pape: I mean, it cuts out a lot, all right.
• 7:51
  Philip Pape: So, what I want to do to play devil's advocate is first talk about the short-term perceived benefits.
• 7:59
  Philip Pape: Now, perceived and actual in some ways, but uh perceived benefits of a rigid diet or aka a fad diet.
• 8:06
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 8:07
  Philip Pape: So, first, when you cut out a whole bunch of food groups, or in this case, you say you only eat these food groups, meat, eggs, dairy, you are eating then only whole foods, and these are highly satiating whole foods.
• 8:22
  Philip Pape: Protein is the most satiating macro.
• 8:24
  Philip Pape: Fat is pretty satiating, you know, animal products are gonna have both.
• 8:27
  Philip Pape: They're not gonna have many carbs, and they're gonna have a high calorie uh density, or I should say I not high calorie density, a low calorie density uh in in many cases compared to processed foods, right?
• 8:40
  Philip Pape: Meat can still be uh somewhat calorie dense depending on the cut, but in relative terms to uh whole foods is low calorie density, it's not as low calorie density as plants, but we'll get to that.
• 8:51
  Philip Pape: Anyway, you're eating only high whole foods that fill you up and you're not eating any processed foods, and so you do reduce your calories.
• 8:59
  Philip Pape: So going back to Jerry's, you know, implication, is it because of a reduction in total calorie intake?
• 9:04
  Philip Pape: That is the massive underlying foundation of any of these diets.
• 9:07
  Philip Pape: When I hear someone did keto and lost X number of pounds so quickly, I think, okay, there's a few reasons for that.
• 9:14
  Philip Pape: The first is the loss in water weight and glycogen when you come off carbs.
• 9:18
  Philip Pape: So that could be a few pounds right off the bat.
• 9:20
  Philip Pape: And then it's the lack of overconsumption because you're not eating ultra-processed foods.
• 9:26
  Philip Pape: And we know from studies, and I talked about this with Dr.
• 9:29
  Philip Pape: Bill Campbell and others on the show, that if you are given an unfettered food environment where you have ultra-processed foods available, you're going to overconsume by 500 calories a day versus a whole foods-only diet.
• 9:43
  Philip Pape: Well, that alone would lead to a one pound a week difference between those two groups.
• 9:49
  Philip Pape: So if you were more or less maintaining your weight, or even if you were gaining a little weight slowly over time and you're like, oh, I'm overweight.
• 9:55
  Philip Pape: I need to go on a diet.
• 9:56
  Philip Pape: And so you start keto or you start carnivore, you cut out all these processed foods, you're just naturally, without tracking, going to eat around 500 calories less a day on average.
• 10:05
  Philip Pape: And so you might start losing a pound a week, or it'll be a pound of a week of intake less than you were doing before.
• 10:11
  Philip Pape: And before you know it, you're losing weight.
• 10:13
  Philip Pape: And it's actually probably, it's probably more than that, depending on how much processed foods you were eating, because the average American, the average Western diet is something like 50 or 60 percent ultra-processed foods.
• 10:26
  Philip Pape: And so this is where you hear these big claims of, oh, I lost, you know, 40 pounds in two months, which would be something like five pounds a week, which you think of that.
• 10:34
  Philip Pape: That is extremely fast.
• 10:37
  Philip Pape: And if you follow this show at all, this show, see, I'm already, I'm already acting like it's on the podcast and it will be.
• 10:42
  Philip Pape: But if you follow me or my stuff, my content at all, you'll know that we don't want to lose weight too quickly, or else we're gonna lose muscle.
• 10:50
  Philip Pape: But that's beside the point.
• 10:52
  Philip Pape: Uh, the fact that you have whole foods highly satiating, you eliminate ultra-processed foods is probably 95% of the equation.
• 11:00
  Philip Pape: That's why people lose weight on these diets.
• 11:01
  Philip Pape: It's exactly why.
• 11:03
  Philip Pape: So, yes, that's right.
• 11:04
  Philip Pape: Now, the statement about improved blood sugar control, if you're insulin resistant, I would say that is a true statement to some extent, because if you eliminate carbs, you're not going to have the spikes in blood sugar from carbs.
• 11:20
  Philip Pape: But I would call this a red herring.
• 11:22
  Philip Pape: Uh, I think that's the logical fallacy.
• 11:24
  Philip Pape: I'd have to ask my oldest daughter, um, who has learned has, I think she's in her second year of learning about logical fallacies.
• 11:31
  Philip Pape: And I'll tell you, anytime we read the news, we look at what happens with politicians, she's like fallacy, fallacy, fallacy, fallacy.
• 11:38
  Philip Pape: Pretty much everything everyone says in the media, and if it's a politician opening their mouth, it's going to be a logical fallacy.
• 11:43
  Philip Pape: And uh, she's taught me that.
• 11:44
  Philip Pape: But same thing in the fitness industry.
• 11:46
  Philip Pape: There are a lot of logical fallacies.
• 11:48
  Philip Pape: I think this is red herring, meaning uh it's a distraction because here's what happens your body is really good at compensating in so many ways.
• 11:55
  Philip Pape: And there's something called physiological insulin resistance, where your body preserves glucose because you don't have any coming in by making your muscles more insulin resistant.
• 12:05
  Philip Pape: Isn't that crazy?
• 12:06
  Philip Pape: It's kind of like the uh counterintuitive idea that if you run and run and run and you run, you become this endurance athlete, your body's gonna compensate by becoming more efficient with its calories.
• 12:16
  Philip Pape: So while you may be running to burn more calories, your body's saying, no, no, no, no, stop right there.
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: You're trying to burn so many calories, so we need to be efficient with our calories.
• 12:24
  Philip Pape: Well, the body can do the same thing with insulin resistance.
• 12:27
  Philip Pape: So this is the important thing, though.
• 12:29
  Philip Pape: If you have a diverse diet, all the different foods, fruits, vegetables, grains, meat, eggs, dairy, you know, some combination, doesn't have to be every single one of those, but a variety.
• 12:40
  Philip Pape: And then you move a lot and you strength train, your body will become insulin sensitive and it's not a concern.
• 12:47
  Philip Pape: The body's metabolically resilient, right?
• 12:49
  Philip Pape: It's flexible.
• 12:51
  Philip Pape: And you want your insulin to spike from an intake of carbs when you train, for example.
• 12:56
  Philip Pape: Uh, muscle contractions and muscle mass both are sinks for glucose.
• 13:00
  Philip Pape: So the actual act of training requires it, and the carrying around of muscle mass requires it.
• 13:06
  Philip Pape: And so if you have a healthy lifestyle, you don't have to worry about it.
• 13:09
  Philip Pape: Again, I'm not talking about, say, type one diabetics who've already who are born with a certain deficiency with insulin production.
• 13:16
  Philip Pape: I'm not talking about type two diabetics either, who have crossed the rubicon in that realm.
• 13:21
  Philip Pape: They may need a special diet to maintain their blood sugar control throughout the day.
• 13:27
  Philip Pape: And even then, I would argue type one diabetics can have a moderate carb diet that's not a carnivore or keto totally cut carbs and be just fine if they, you know, if they work out, if they walk, if they eat at the right times, and if they um average out the glycemic index of their meals, right?
• 13:45
  Philip Pape: Of the the glucose spikeability of their meals by averaging out with fibrous foods, with vegetables, with whole grains, and you know, um whole carbs.
• 13:55
  Philip Pape: So the segue from that is that the carnivore diet, which has almost zero carbs, is being confounded in terms of benefits for insulin sensitivity with a diet that has zero ultra-processed refined carbs.
• 14:12
  Philip Pape: My point is if you cut out all refined carbs, in other words, if you just go from a diet that has fruits, vegetables, grains, and all that, um, and is whole mostly whole foods, you're also going to mitigate blood sugar spikes without having to cut carbs.
• 14:28
  Philip Pape: It's the type of carbs that often makes the difference, is my point.
• 14:32
  Philip Pape: Ultra-processed refined carbs.
• 14:34
  Philip Pape: There's reasons that it spikes your blood sugar, partly being the fact that you don't have to digest it and it gets confounded.
• 14:41
  Philip Pape: So I wanted to go off on that tangent because I think it's important to understand that if you get improved blood sugar from dropping carbs, it may not be a direct cause and effect just because you eliminated all carbs.
• 14:52
  Philip Pape: It's because you eliminated certain types of carbs.
• 14:55
  Philip Pape: And maybe your diet and lifestyle weren't uh optimal to begin with.
• 14:59
  Philip Pape: Okay, another benefit is that the carnivore diet and diets like it are elimination diets.
• 15:05
  Philip Pape: If you think about it, you're eliminating a whole bunch of food groups.
• 15:08
  Philip Pape: Uh, when I was diagnosed with eosinophilic esophagitis, it's an it's a throat condition where these little nodules form, uh, migrate to your esophagus and it causes you to have trouble swallowing.
• 15:22
  Philip Pape: Uh, one of the natural remedies was to eliminate a whole bunch of food groups.
• 15:27
  Philip Pape: It was like eggs, dairy, grain.
• 15:30
  Philip Pape: It was a whole bunch.
• 15:31
  Philip Pape: And I said, no, I'm not, I am not doing that.
• 15:33
  Philip Pape: Like when I think of sustainability and lifestyle, I'm not doing it.
• 15:36
  Philip Pape: Are there other options?
• 15:37
  Philip Pape: And there were.
• 15:38
  Philip Pape: There's a medication that I'm able to take now, a biologic.
• 15:41
  Philip Pape: Thank, thank goodness for modern medicine in some ways, that uh eliminates the problem altogether.
• 15:46
  Philip Pape: And now I don't have to worry about it and I could eat whatever I want.
• 15:48
  Philip Pape: But I could have done that elimination diet and seen if it worked for me.
• 15:51
  Philip Pape: It wouldn't work for everyone anyway.
• 15:54
  Philip Pape: Um, I know women who do an elimination diet for uh hormones, right?
• 15:58
  Philip Pape: To see what kind of foods might be affecting your hormones.
• 16:00
  Philip Pape: And so the fad diets in the um carnivore and keto and others may help you remove those intolerances and allergens, improve your gut health, improve your digestion in the short term so that you can identify what might be an issue for you if there is one.
• 16:16
  Philip Pape: So that's a that's a positive.
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: And you can use this technique in the short term to do that.
• 16:21
  Philip Pape: And then you would add back in things that um that didn't seem, you know, you one at a time, you would add things back in to see if they didn't affect you for say a few weeks, and then continue to add more in until you identify the one that did.
• 16:33
  Philip Pape: Another uh, I guess I can call it a benefit is the that it's a high protein diet.
• 16:37
  Philip Pape: So that's good.
• 16:38
  Philip Pape: You're basically forced into getting your protein.
• 16:40
  Philip Pape: So it's no problem to get your protein.
• 16:43
  Philip Pape: And then you get the associated nutrients from animal products, which I think are fantastic: B12, iron, zinc, and others that are in animal products, which is kind of the opposite of what a vegan might struggle with.
• 16:53
  Philip Pape: They might be missing those and have to supplement them, right?
• 16:56
  Philip Pape: And anything you restrict, anything you cut out is gonna result in these deficiencies.
• 17:01
  Philip Pape: And then the last potential benefit is the placebo effect.
• 17:03
  Philip Pape: We're telling us, we're telling ourselves that this diet works for everyone.
• 17:06
  Philip Pape: It's so great.
• 17:07
  Philip Pape: We're on the diet, we're following it, and there's like a placebo effect that then causes us to stick with it.
• 17:13
  Philip Pape: We see uh weight loss and we say, okay, this diet really works.
• 17:17
  Philip Pape: I'm gonna keep going with it.
• 17:19
  Philip Pape: And you kind of amplify the effect as a result.
• 17:22
  Philip Pape: Now, this isn't always a terrible thing in some cases where you take an action, you get a result, it's a win, you continue taking the action and it reinforces it.
• 17:30
  Philip Pape: The problem's going to be is the cause and effect what you think it was?
• 17:33
  Philip Pape: And that's where the real uh challenge comes.
• 17:36
  Philip Pape: So now I'm gonna get into what are the actual long-term impacts of a rigid diet, especially the carnivore diet.
• 17:43
  Philip Pape: And Jerry, I love the carnivore diet because it's it's so restrictive.
• 17:46
  Philip Pape: It gets it's a good example for kind of the hypothetical of everything that can go wrong when you're on a diet like that.
• 17:54
  Philip Pape: So let's go over the whole list here.
• 17:56
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 17:57
  Philip Pape: In no particular order, except the most important one I say for last, is going to be first of all, there's no fiber, there's no prebiotics.
• 18:05
  Philip Pape: And there are so many things we don't even know yet about uh gut in the microbiome, like we're just discovering.
• 18:12
  Philip Pape: But we do know that not having fiber is a problem for your bowel movements, right?
• 18:16
  Philip Pape: It can cause constipation.
• 18:18
  Philip Pape: It has risk for your health, for colon cancer, for cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and then it affects your gut health.
• 18:24
  Philip Pape: There's a lack of microbiome diversity.
• 18:26
  Philip Pape: Yes, you can supplement with probiotics and prebiotics.
• 18:29
  Philip Pape: You can always supplement with things, but what we have to remember is that the nutrients and compounds that come from foods are not the only things that we get from those foods.
• 18:41
  Philip Pape: There are many other compounds that we don't even track, right?
• 18:44
  Philip Pape: And I learned this from, I think, from Stronger by Science probably, that you know, one of the benefits of eating whole foods is you get these other things that we still don't always understand or have have necessarily labeled.
• 18:55
  Philip Pape: We know some things like uh the what do you call them, phytonutrients, which the carnivore and keto and low-carb crowds will say, oh, they're they're bad because it's like the defense mechanism of the plants.
• 19:06
  Philip Pape: And nothing could be further from the truth.
• 19:08
  Philip Pape: They are all of the compounds in plants are uh aligned with our health and our history as humans, even if you want to take that route and talk about ancestral um diets.
• 19:18
  Philip Pape: But anyway, no fiber, no prebiotics.
• 19:20
  Philip Pape: The next thing is that there are massive nutrient deficiencies, huge nutrient deficiencies, vitamin C, flavonoids, carotenoids, glucosinolate, I don't know how to pronounce it, glucosinolates, and those three are phytonutrients in plants, folate, and then even the big ones like the electrolytes, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and then all the compounds I just said might be in plants that we don't even track, things like lutein and zexanthrin, okay, which I just discovered about that can affect eye health.
• 19:52
  Philip Pape: And so you're just taking this massive risk of being uh of malnutrition, is what it comes down to.
• 20:01
  Philip Pape: And even if you, you know, swallow uh hordes of vitamins every day, are you still getting what you can get with plants um that you might be missing out on for your health?
• 20:12
  Philip Pape: You you just don't know.
• 20:14
  Philip Pape: And and I think that's a big problem for this kind of diet.
• 20:18
  Philip Pape: It's the reason that I started eating vegetables about what, 15, 20 years ago when I married my wife, and she's like, man, you're picky, and we got to get you eating vegetables.
• 20:25
  Philip Pape: I said, All right, honey, help me out.
• 20:27
  Philip Pape: Let's eat vegetables.
• 20:28
  Philip Pape: I understand there's a benefit to them, and now I love them.
• 20:31
  Philip Pape: I love most vegetables.
• 20:32
  Philip Pape: There's a few that I can't stand, like many of us, but 95% of them I enjoy, and I know how much they contribute to my health in terms of nutrition and and so many other things, um, fiber and everything else.
• 20:44
  Philip Pape: Okay, continuing on as to the impacts of a rigid diet, the abnormally high level of saturated fat, I really think is a true concern.
• 20:52
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 20:52
  Philip Pape: I used to be a keto zealot, uh, keto, paleo, all that.
• 20:55
  Philip Pape: And I was like, nah, saturated fat, the association with cardiovascular disease, that's just um that's that's there's industry, conflict of bias, or, or you know, if you're if you have a healthy lifestyle, then there's that's a confounding association.
• 21:10
  Philip Pape: And, you know, look at look at countries like France that eat a rich diet high in saturated fat.
• 21:15
  Philip Pape: Some of those arguments have some validity.
• 21:18
  Philip Pape: I always concede that these things are more complicated than we think, but we also know there's a super tight correlation and I think demonstrated causation between high saturated fat consumption and cardiovascular disease.
• 21:31
  Philip Pape: Why take the chance?
• 21:32
  Philip Pape: And honestly, a diet that's so high in saturated fat generally looks like a restrictive diet anyway, and now you're missing out on other things.
• 21:39
  Philip Pape: So naturally, by eating just animal products, you're going to have fat, saturated fat that goes well beyond 10% of your calories and well beyond one third of your fat.
• 21:48
  Philip Pape: And I would say that that's probably not a prudent thing for most people's health.
• 21:52
  Philip Pape: Glycogen.
• 21:53
  Philip Pape: Okay, now we get into muscle building and energy and performance and all the things that we love to talk about here.
• 21:58
  Philip Pape: Glycogen stores.
• 22:00
  Philip Pape: Are basically completely depleted because you don't have anything coming in.
• 22:03
  Philip Pape: This is going to impact your performance, your lifting progress, your ability to build muscle.
• 22:07
  Philip Pape: You're going to have a catabolic environment, which is so carbs are anti-catabolic.
• 22:13
  Philip Pape: Catabolic means the breakdown of tissue, right?
• 22:15
  Philip Pape: What we want is an anabolic environment where we eat a bunch of protein, it gets constructed into new tissue like muscle, and it stays there.
• 22:24
  Philip Pape: And when you don't have the carbs coming in, the carbs would normally spare the protein from being used as energy because the carbs are being used as energy.
• 22:32
  Philip Pape: And so a zero carb environment will stunt your muscle growth.
• 22:35
  Philip Pape: We know this.
• 22:36
  Philip Pape: We know this from studies of, say, bodybuilders who are in a surplus and those that are on keto build significantly less muscle than those who are not.
• 22:44
  Philip Pape: And why would you want that as a lifter, right?
• 22:46
  Philip Pape: And when Jared came to me and he's a big, strong guy, and he made a lot of progress, he built a lot of strength and muscle.
• 22:51
  Philip Pape: You know, now he's able to take that to a new level with the training environment or with this um, you know, having this anabolic environment where the carbs add some fuel and energy, recovery, performance, and so on.
• 23:01
  Philip Pape: So that's a big deal that you're missing out on with a rigid diet like this.
• 23:06
  Philip Pape: There's also mood and cognitive function with lower glucose.
• 23:10
  Philip Pape: I can't tell you how important this is.
• 23:12
  Philip Pape: I've seen many women that come to me as a client athlete who just have eaten low carb for years.
• 23:19
  Philip Pape: We up their carbs, and all of a sudden, mood and clarity, brain function start to skyrocket, right?
• 23:27
  Philip Pape: And their sleep improves, their stress goes down, overall stress load on the body goes down.
• 23:32
  Philip Pape: That is a huge thing that we cannot discount.
• 23:35
  Philip Pape: Now, I know Jerry mentioned that he had a lot of improvements in blood work and digestion and felt good and everything.
• 23:41
  Philip Pape: And again, we have to think in relative terms.
• 23:44
  Philip Pape: So, relative to an ultra-processed diet, an uncontrolled diet, a typical Western diet, something like the carnivore diet can cause improvements because it's in relative terms closer to where we want to be, but in sort of absolute terms compared to uh optimal, not even optimal, but really what we want for up for our health and for our ability to improve our body composition, strength, muscle, energy, and so on, it it falls far short, in my opinion.
• 24:12
  Philip Pape: Um, and not just my opinion, I think it's backed up by the evidence.
• 24:15
  Philip Pape: Okay, also, um, there's no antioxidants because you're eating a very limited set of foods, and this could have an impact on your oxidative stress over the long term, um, which is associated with longevity and aging.
• 24:28
  Philip Pape: And so if those concern you, then that's a problem.
• 24:32
  Philip Pape: And then potential hormone imbalances.
• 24:35
  Philip Pape: So we do know there are studies that show varying levels of association between low carbs and imbalances or dysregulations of hormones.
• 24:45
  Philip Pape: Insulin, thyroid, cortisol, leptin, ghrelin, the sex hormones, including um what they call functional hypothalamic amenorrhea, which is the absence of menstruation, the absence of a period, just because you don't have enough energy availability, not only calories, but the carbs themselves.
• 25:03
  Philip Pape: And so my my women out there, ladies, uh, female client, athletes, uh embrace those carbs, really.
• 25:10
  Philip Pape: Embrace the carbs because you might find a world of difference with your hormonal function.
• 25:15
  Philip Pape: And anyone who's uh perimenopausal or postmenopausal and you feel like hormones are the bane of your existence right now, it could be that the carbs are too low.
• 25:22
  Philip Pape: It could be, right?
• 25:23
  Philip Pape: And if you're dieting and the carbs are low, that would that would have a similar effect.
• 25:27
  Philip Pape: And so getting out of a diet and being at maintenance or a slight surplus for a while is a great way to recover that, especially if you can introduce the a decent amount of carbs.
• 25:36
  Philip Pape: Um, it may also affect IFG1, which is growth factor.
• 25:40
  Philip Pape: Uh, the evidence on this is a little bit shaky, so I'm not going to just claim that, but you know, possibly.
• 25:44
  Philip Pape: And again, anytime you restrict and cut things out completely, it's going to have downstream effects for your physiology.
• 25:51
  Philip Pape: Just common sense in the SIF SNF test, I think, should tell anybody that eating, you know, five types of foods instead of 500 types of foods may have negative consequences.
• 26:03
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 26:03
  Philip Pape: Now, what's the biggest one of all?
• 26:05
  Philip Pape: This is the one that we really truly care about.
• 26:07
  Philip Pape: And that is you can't stick to it.
• 26:10
  Philip Pape: It's not sustainable.
• 26:11
  Philip Pape: It's socially isolating, right?
• 26:13
  Philip Pape: You are now the weird one making all the weird requests, saying you can't do this, can't do this, can't have that, can't have that.
• 26:18
  Philip Pape: And we use that language too.
• 26:19
  Philip Pape: I can't, I can't, I can't.
• 26:20
  Philip Pape: Like it's some rule that's that's fixed in stone against us.
• 26:24
  Philip Pape: Um, you know, a slight improvement would be, well, I choose not to have this, I choose not to have that, you know, because whatever, but it's still socially isolating.
• 26:32
  Philip Pape: There's a lack of variety, and I don't know about you, this just gets boring.
• 26:35
  Philip Pape: I've tried all the diets.
• 26:36
  Philip Pape: I've done probably 15 different diets, 20 diets over my life.
• 26:39
  Philip Pape: And every time I lose interest because they're just boring.
• 26:42
  Philip Pape: They're restrictive.
• 26:43
  Philip Pape: You just can't, quote unquote, can't eat certain things.
• 26:47
  Philip Pape: So the minute that you crave that thing, all of a sudden, oh no, it's a moral dilemma.
• 26:53
  Philip Pape: It's a choice.
• 26:54
  Philip Pape: And now you have to choose do I fail or do I continue and feel restricted?
• 27:00
  Philip Pape: And so these are all attributes that caused almost any habit, not just dieting, but also your exercise and training program, um, trying to improve skills through personal development and personal improvement.
• 27:11
  Philip Pape: If you cannot be consistent because of it's weird, it's boring, it's restrictive, then you're gonna fail.
• 27:19
  Philip Pape: And also you tend to think of things in terms of the wagon, falling off the wagon because you've created this little uncomfortable wagon on a single tight track, and that's that's all you can do.
• 27:31
  Philip Pape: And so you very easily can fall off of it.
• 27:34
  Philip Pape: Whereas a flexible approach gives you this wide, broad avenue where you get to walk wherever you want and get to your destination, uh, with obstacles in the way and everything, no problem.
• 27:44
  Philip Pape: So, what does failure mean?
• 27:45
  Philip Pape: It means you're gonna regain weight, it means you're gonna feel inadequate, you're gonna lack confidence because you're not sure if anything really works, you're not gonna get the results you want, et cetera, et cetera.
• 27:55
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 27:55
  Philip Pape: So that if I didn't state my opinion, Jerry, by now, then uh now you now you have it.
• 28:02
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 28:02
  Philip Pape: So long story short, is that these diets, carnivore, keto, whole 30, even Weight Watchers, right?
• 28:11
  Philip Pape: Which puts points on things and and kind of limits your choices.
• 28:15
  Philip Pape: Any of these diets, rigid, restrictive diets, you know, meal plans that are restrictive, they are deceptively simple because they limit your choices.
• 28:24
  Philip Pape: So they say, here's your 10 choices.
• 28:25
  Philip Pape: Boom, easy, go, right?
• 28:27
  Philip Pape: You don't have to think.
• 28:28
  Philip Pape: And then you realize how difficult that is because now you've taken off the table the other thousand choices that you would have had before.
• 28:37
  Philip Pape: We want to expand our choices, right?
• 28:38
  Philip Pape: We want to expand them to all foods.
• 28:41
  Philip Pape: That's what we want.
• 28:42
  Philip Pape: Yes, even alcohol.
• 28:43
  Philip Pape: I know I had I've talked a lot lately about how cutting alcohol out could be good for multiple things, but you still want the choice, and it's your choice, and you can still fit it into your plan and still make progress.
• 28:54
  Philip Pape: This is what flexible dieting is all about, and increasing your energy combined with all the lifestyle things like training activity and lifestyle.
• 29:02
  Philip Pape: Okay, so the last thing, as Jerry said above when we introduced this question, this flexible approach is exactly what we ended up doing together.
• 29:12
  Philip Pape: And now he's getting these results, incredible results, which at least match what he did before, but without the restriction that's going to cause him to gain the weight back and feel like a failure and feel like I'm not sure what actually works.
• 29:27
  Philip Pape: So if you've tried diets like we talked about today, you are in the vast majority.
• 29:32
  Philip Pape: In fact, I've never met anyone that hasn't tried a diet of some kind.
• 29:36
  Philip Pape: Some people try over a hundred diets in their lifetime, lifetime, especially women, but there are plenty of men, myself included, who've tried dozens of diets.
• 29:43
  Philip Pape: We all have, right?
• 29:45
  Philip Pape: Sometimes many, many, many, many times.
• 29:47
  Philip Pape: And it's a mindset thing, right?
• 29:50
  Philip Pape: So I hope that answered your question, Jerry, about the carnivore diet, but I hope it answered the broader question about rigid versus flexible dieting and the fact that there is a better way.
• 30:00
  Philip Pape: I hope you enjoyed this answer from the Ask Philip thread in the Wits and Weights Facebook group.
• 30:05
  Philip Pape: Again, if you want to take advantage of this yourself so you can get closer to your physique and health goals, head over to our free Facebook community using the link in my show notes.
• 30:16
  Philip Pape: Our Facebook group is a fast-growing community of people who want to use evidence-based principles to look like they lift.
• 30:23
  Philip Pape: If you want to build muscle, lose fat, increase your metabolism, and crush your body composition goals, join the Wits and Weights Facebook group using the link in my show notes.
• 30:32
  Philip Pape: If you can't access the show notes, just go to witsandweights.com and click on community at the top.
• 30:37
  Philip Pape: Again, you could just go to witsandweights.com and click on community at the top.
• 30:43
  Philip Pape: As always, stay strong and I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.
• 30:51
  Philip Pape: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights.
• 30:55
  Philip Pape: If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them.
• 31:04
  Philip Pape: And make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode.
• 31:09
  Philip Pape: Until then, stay strong.